Cells

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT CELLS - PAGE 3

Dear Dr. Donohue: Our son, age 15, injured his leg when he fell down stairs at home. He had a bad limp and pain, also a strange-looking knot that remained. The diagnosis is bone in muscle. What does this mean? - Mr. and Mrs. L.J.U. Dear Mr. and Mrs. L.J.U.: Your doctor apparently is speaking of a condition called myositis ossificans. The problem begins when trauma from an injury such as your son's causes a hematoma, a collection of blood at the site. It is common among athletes. The myositis emerges in stages, as the hematoma cells become "resorbed," taken up by surrounding tissue.

Dear Dr. Donohue: Why would my last Pap smear report have the word "dysplasia" in it? I am afraid it means cancer. My doctor wants me back in for more tests, but does not seem to be terribly concerned. - Mrs. R.R.T. Dear Mrs. R.R.T.: Dysplasia signifies abnormal tissue cells. The translation from the Greek is "poorly formed."Always disturbing but not always ominous, the finding should prompt follow-up tests. You want to rule out the worst scenario, cancer. I suspect the new testing will feature colposcopy, visualization of the area with a special instrument to magnify and illuminate the suspect cervix area.

Dear Dr. Donohue: I'm an 84-year-old man. My ears started ringing about a year ago. My ears don't hurt, and my hearing is good. - M.K. Dear M.K.: Even though you claim to have good hearing, I would have to say that at 84 there is bound to be some diminution. It happens to everyone. I say this to remind you that ear noises usually become more pronounced with hearing loss. It can be quite subtle. The sensitive hearing cells lie deep in the ear, and as they die they emit signals perceived as noise, usually some form of ringing.

President Bush will soon make one of those decisions that make his job difficult. The president is expected to announce federal rules for funding research on human embryos. These include rules for the use of embryonic stem cells, which some believe could aid in research to alleviate pain and suffering and preserve the lives of people with Parkinson's disease and other maladies. The debate is over whether it is moral to kill a just-begun human life in order to improve the lives of older humans.

Scientists have succeeded in reprogramming ordinary cells from the tips of mouse tails and rewinding their developmental clocks so they are virtually indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells, according to studies released Wednesday. If the discovery applies to human cells -- and researchers are optimistic that it will -- it would offer a straightforward method for creating a limitless supply of cell lines tailor-made for patients without any ethical strings attached. Three research groups said they accomplished the feat by activating four genes that are turned on in days-old embryos.

I ask myself why a group of billionaires throughout the world are so interested in producing cloned babies just like them from their stem cells. After all, adult stem cells are showing real promise for the cures to a great many diseases such as diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, without killing anyone, compared to embryonic stem cells that have yet to show any promise at all. In talking to Dr. Frankenstein, the scientist that this gang has hired to...

Federally funded scientists wishing to conduct experiments on human embryo cells first would have to document that the cells were obtained from women in an ethical manner, according to draft federal guidelines discussed publicly for the first time on Thursday. But the idea that human embryo cells can be obtained or experimented on ethically was immediately attacked as oxymoronic by critics of such research, setting the stage for a legal, scientific and political debate that is expected to stretch through the summer and could become part of congressional budget deliberations this fall.

In several Sept. 28 letters, facts about intelligent design theory are conveniently misconstrued andexchanged for attacks on "creationism." In biology, cells are life's basic building blocks and are tiny mechanical engines more complex than the engine of any automobile. How can it possibly be unscientific to challenge the unproven theory that complex systems have happened all by themselves? Intelligent design theory states that some other explanation (design or forethought) is necessary when cells, for example, now exist that would have been impossible to have occurred as a result of random processes.

In a possible glimpse at the brain surgery of the future, biologists have partly cured mice of a disease resembling multiple sclerosis by injecting restorative cells into their brains. The cells migrated all over the brain and took the correct action to repair the neural disease, in this case a lack of the sheath that covers certain nerve cells and helps speed their conduction of electrical signals. The approach is founded on the use of stem cells, the special regenerative cells with which organs renew and repair themselves.